#010: Beliefs

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silvi’s note

I created an IG account: @TheUndoingSpace!

Come follow if you want bite-sized nuggets that raise your consciousness, relax your mind, and energize your body. (An Instagram account that does all that?! The most accepted of all challenges.)

Now, to your usual (re)programming.

the shift

I focus a lot on ideas here. Concepts like slowness, resilience, self-forgiveness...

That's because the beliefs we hold have the biggest (and most enduring) impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Beliefs have the power to drive action naturally...

...Once they’ve been "programmed."

But how do we embrace a new idea?

Adopting a new perspective – even when we're convinced that it's the best thing for us – is not always so simple.

At times, it can feel like there's something literally blocking us. And in a psychological sense, there is.

When we’re facing a mental block, taking action will help us rewire.

Of course, by “action,” I don’t mean forcing the desired behavior change. ("Just do it!" has never been this newsletter's tagline.)

I mean a very specific kind of non-action action: Meditation.¹

There are 10 billion cool things about meditation (and I look forward to sharing a handful of them in future issues) but for now, I'll focus on the scenario I just mentioned:

Wanting to change some aspect of life but getting caught in the sticky web of past thoughts and behavior.

Let's start with a universal example: Stress at work.

You don't enjoy your experience at work. You've fallen into a cycle of feeling tense, reactive, and even dreading the future. You're aware this mindset isn't doing you any favors – for your wellbeing or even your work.

Eventually, you decide this won't do. Maybe you've started consuming new perspectives (from books, podcasts, peers, this newsletter!) that inspire you to approach work with a sense of unconditional inner peace.

When you're present, this "inner peace" thing isn't just an idea – It feels very real. It's like you're standing on the threshold of a new portal you've opened.

The weight lifts from your shoulders. Your stomach relaxes. Your mind is deliciously spacious.

Then, "life" commences. Opening your laptop, you check your emails and glance at your calendar.

"I've got 25 minutes, and I didn't finish my to-dos... Do I have time for breakfast? No, instead I'll be in this pointless meeting. Massive workload already. When should I work out? I SHOULD look for a new job but have no time to do it. Not that I even know what I'd look for."

A trigger – glancing at your calendar – sets off a subconscious script, a scribble of thoughts and emotions. One thought adds tension, another amplifies it, and your body tightens in response. Round and round it goes.

Mere moments later, "inner peace" is a flat concept that stands outside of you – a motivational poster on the wall.

We might blame our busy calendar or the unreliable coworker who created more work for us, but the noisy script that’s triggered already exists inside.

The challenge is we're too immersed in the everyday drama to notice the back-end machinery generating it – old beliefs that we don't want to believe in anymore.

Mindfulness is a way to disengage from the drama, zoom out, and observe our inner workings.

It's to notice that what you thought was the truth are stories you've told yourself for so long they’ve become your reality. (E.g., There's never enough time...I don't have control...My self-worth is defined by my productivity...Being perfect is being loved...Pushing through my exhaustion is what success looks and feels like.)

Even if you can’t articulate your flavor of beliefs right now, that’s okay. Meditation works beyond the content of the mind. It slows everything down, creating enough distance to see these patterns in real-time.

You may realize they're happening without your conscious input.

Your subconscious mind is like a conveyor belt, moving you from peace to stress without you taking a single deliberate step.

Without awareness of this conveyor belt, we try to walk uphill and feel defeated when we end up right back where we never intended to go.

Gaining awareness is noticing the conveyor belt.

When you see it, don't force yourself to get off, or judge yourself for staying on. Watch yourself go on this ride again and again. Observe, and stay connected to how it makes you feel in your body.

Emotions driving the conveyor belt, even the negative ones like stress and suffering and anger and guilt and shame, are addictive. When we simply sit back and watch, what was once intoxicating will slowly lose its charge. The deep sense of fear and shame that kept us mindlessly busy (or frozen) will wither into a dry shell of itself.

To stay aware is to stop feeding the patterns that run our lives. With enough awareness, stepping off of the conveyor belt will happen naturally. Almost effortlessly.

Your awareness, now fully online, won’t let you take the next ride.

How do we increase awareness?

It begins with training. If you're new to meditation, start small. 3-5 minutes of meditation, easiest and (most effective) if it's in the morning.

1. Set a timer.

2. Sit and pay attention to your breath (and/or your body) with a relaxed focus.

3. Each time you catch your mind wandering from the point of focus, celebrate! Simply noticing your mind’s wandered is the equivalent of doing one mental push-up.

4. Bring your attention back to your breath/body. Repeat.

Reading this newsletter (and similar content like this) can introduce you to new ideas. It can inspire you to see a new way of thinking and living, but... to experience it requires zooming out, so you can see what’s standing in the way.

Awareness is the bridge to reclaiming our power, our energy, our peace, our focus, and our joy. We don't have to create any of these things. They already exist.

With enough awareness, our perspective shifts and clicks, unlocking everything.

cheers,

Silvi

notes

¹ I went back and forth about using “mindfulness” or “meditation” and went with meditation because what I'm prescribing (in this issue) is a practice, not simply a state of mind you try to embody while doing everyday things (mindfulness). Both are valuable, but meditation is the training ground.

a question for readers

If you haven’t answered this yet, I’d love your input!

As I work on The Undoing, there's a question that's always in the back of my mind: What can I create to make these perspectives more powerful and enduring? I.e. It's one thing to read about them and an entirely different world to experience them.